CIA Chile

Contradictions on Chile

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Setidie Report , Earlier Testimony Disagree

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By Laurence Stern

Washington Post StaM Writer

Testifying under oath before
the Senate Multinational
Corporations Subcommittee,
former U.S. Ambassador to
Chile Edward Malcolm Korry
made a series of seemingly
unqualified disclaimers of
American intervention in the
1970 Chilean presidential
election.

Among his assertions on
March 27, 1973, were these:

“ ... It was obvious from
the historical record that we
did not act in any manner that
reflected a hard line; that the
United States gave no support
to any electoral candidate . . .
that the United States did not
seek to pressure, subvert,
influence a single member of
the Chilean congress at any
time in the entire four years of
my stay,. * . w

The revelations of the
Senate Intelligence committee
in its assassination report last
week contradict this and other
assertions sworn to by Korry 2
** years ago.

The committee report
quotes, for example, a
message Korry sent to
President Eduardo Frei, long
a favorite of Korry and the
American diplomatic
establishment.

The message, seeking to
encourage Frei to join a secret
U.S. plan of political in-
tervention to deny the 1970
Chilean election to Salvador
Allende, said: “Frei should
know that not a nut or bolt will
be allowed to reach Chile
under Allende. Once Allende
comes to power we shall do all
within our power to condemn
Chile and the Chileans to
utmost deprivation and
poverty, a policy designed for
a long time to come to ac-
celerate the hard features of a
Communist society in Chile

Statements issued in behalf
of President Nixon that the
United States played no in-
terventionist role in Chile in
1970 also were strongly
challenged by the Senate
committee’s evidence of a

presidentially ordered covert
political war against the
socialist Allende.

So was the testimony of
former Secretary of State
William P. Rogers; his suc-
cessor, Henry A. Kissinger;
former CIA Director Richard
M. Helms; former Assistant
Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs Charles
Meyer and other State
Department spokesmen.

Meyer commented earlier
this week, “I have the feeling I
was part of a James Bond
scenario and didn't know it at
the time.” *

Concerning Korry, the
Senate intelligence committee
reported that the- former
ambassador recommended to
Washington a plan for “a
$500,000 effort in (the Chilean)
congress to persuade certain
shifts in voting on 24 October,
1970." That was the date of the
Chilean runoff election made
necessary because Allende
failed to win a majority in the

See CHILE, A4, CoL 1

f'F

CHILE, From Al; ;

popular election Sept. 4.

The “Forty Committee, M
the government's top decision-
making body for covett
operations, authorized
$350,000 to';be spent by the
Central Intelligence Agency to
bribe menbers of the Chilean
congress to oppose Alleride
and overturn the results of the.
popular election. The money
•was never spent, however,
because of fears that the CIA’s
complicity \frouId leakoflt;' r *

The S enale report gave new
significance to an internal ITT
document that vyas first
reported by columnist Jack
Anderson in March, 1972. It
alluded to a Sept. 15,d970 % -

was In a very minor way in-
volved in the 1970 election and
since then we have absolutely
stayed away from any coups.
Our efforts in Chile were to
strengthen the democratic

4 - .. . ® 1 fc,,v wviiuwi OUL

message from the State political parties and give them

ry in a basis for winning the elec-

to Korry

Department
Santiago.

That memo, from ITT field
operatives Hal Hendrix and.

Ptbbert Berrelez, reported^to
high executives of the firm':

“The big push has begun in
ompucuv would leak -Chile..... to assure a

There ‘was another major cbngrestfional victory for

contradicLidn. Accorded to Jor 8 e Alessandri on October

the Senate report:* -Korry \ 24, ‘as part of wbat has been
received a go-ahead from v dubbed **the - “Alessandri
"Washington after a Sept. 14, Formula*’ ,.to prevent Chile

1970 National Security .Council from becoming a Communist

meeting to implement what state , Late Tuesday night was speaking of the CD

was called the “Rube Gold- < s ?P l - «);* Ambassador covert promotion of a coup

berg” gambit to deny the 1970 Edward Ko*;ry finally 19 '°;

election to Allende. This plant- 4 r ®^ eiv ^ a message from the -Testifying before t
called for the diversion of State Department giving him
votes in the Chilean congress the green light to move in the
to the candidacy of Jorge name of President Nixon. The
AI ,f message gave him maximum

authority to do all possible —

Short '*of a Dominican
Republic-type action — to
keep ^Ilehde Tfom taking

stitutionally free to’ succeed 0 A

himself in the presidehcy. -K^rJ t«t^edin the Senate
(Chile’s constitution bars a Multinational Corporations
president /rom succeeding Su committee inquiry that
himself.) ^ S v., 8 " there was no green light or

In his 1973 testimony to the"" JV *

subcommittee investigating Bu ?? declined- to- elaborate
efforts $y International on h,s ,n structions from,

TeleDhono and Tplpor'inh Washington on the ground that panics uwure ur

jt would be impro^r foe hia, after Sept. 8 , the date of the,

jd to discuss the content of an popu lac election) „ > •

PXPCIlHvP rnmirtiinir-ofinn “Ac Iho Procirlonf clalo/1

Alessandri, a conservative
and aging politician, ^who
would then resign, leaving the
incumbent Christian
Democrat, Frei, con-

Allende in 1970, Korry said
that the United States “did not
get involved in the so-called
Alessandri formula . . . “

But a CIA memo, disclosed
in a footnpte to the Senate
commit Lee* report, spelled out
Korry’s role in the Alessandri
formula. J

“Ambassador Korry was
asked to go directly to
President Frei to see if he
would be willing to commit
himself to this line of action. A
contingency of $250,000 was
approved for ’covert support
of projects which Frei or his
trusted team deem im-
portant.’ It was further agreed
that a propaganda campaign
be undertaken by the agency
(CIA) to focus on the damage
of an Allende takeover.’*

Korry said yesterday that “I
stand by every statement I
have made to the committee
and to the press.” He added
that he will testify publicly at
the committee’s hearings on
Chile next week.

. tion in 1976. . .

Thomas Karamessines, CIA
Deputy Director for Plans
(covert operations), testified
to the Senate intelligence
committee that “Kissinger
left no doubt in my mind that
be was under the heaviest of
pressure to get this ac-
complished and he in turn was
placing us under the heaviest
of pressures to get It ac-
complished.'' Karamessines
was speaking of the CIA’s
‘ i coup by

— ary in 19^

-Testifying before the
Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on March 22, 1972,
Rogers said: “The United
States government did not
engage in improper activities
in Chile.”

—Meyer, testifying before
the Senate Multinational
Corporations Subcommittee
on March 17, 1973, said: “The
policy of the government, Mr.
Chairman, was that there
would be no intervention in the .
political affairs of Chile. We
were consistent in that.we
financed no candidates, no
political parties before or
e

As the President stated
... ’we deal with govern-
ments as they are’ ... We
were religiously and
scrupulously adhering to the
policy of the government of
" ' ■ of

executive communication.

Sept. 15, 1970. was the day,
according to the Senate in-
telligence committee report,
that President Nixon ordered
Helms to involve the CIA in .
promoting a military toup the United States
d’etat* in Chile at a meeting nonintervention.”
with Kissinger and Attorney This .week Meyer
General John N. Mitchell.

Other statements by leading
administration officials that
appear to be contradicted by
the evidence of the Senate
report were these:

—In his 1972 foreign policy
report lo'Congress, President
Nixon, in a reference to Chile,
said the United States deals
"realistically with govern-
ments as they are — right and
left.” His administration, the
President said, pursued a
policy of ’’non-intervention.”
—During his confirmation
hearings as Secretary of State
in September, 1973, Kissinger
said that “the CIA was heavily
involved in 1964 in the election,

■L. sa Id

ruefully: “I never felt then nor
now that I was perjuring or
lying. The degree to which I
was talking about what I knew
— and about what I didn’t
know — will have to be
demonstrated.”